Tuesday, May 4, 2010

That was an interesting statement made by a lead project manager whom I was supposed to work with in one of my projects. I was baffled by her statement which was made in a casual discussion about the project we were working on. I asked again, "really never?". She replied without a trace of hesitation- "never".Was she trying to demostrate her superiority over me by telling me she had never failed to deliver her projects on time? Hmm...I really can't be sure but her statement made me wonder if its acceptable for project managers to have a list of projects that failed before, be it in exceed schedule, over budget, unacceptable quality, etc.?

The answer to that is yes, it is ok to have a list of failed projects under a project manager's project experiences so that the project manager would learn from those failed project experiences and apply new found practical wisdom into future project endeavours.However there are project managers who may feel that admitting to the project failures would give themselves an incompetent and incapable image.

It takes courage to admit we have failed before and humility to share the lessons learned from it. However it shows we are definetly on the correct road to becoming wiser and the lessons learnt when shared and applied to future projects will definetly benefit tremedously.

So let's not be ashamed about our past failures in life or projects because they form part of our life experiences. Learn from them and move on to greater victories!

btw, the project manager was removed from the projecteventually due to her blunt communication style..."Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail."~ Confucius